


Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird

by GwenChan



Series: Because Fate said so (but we never agreed) [4]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alpha America (Hetalia), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Human, Beta France (Hetalia), Fluff and Angst, Gen, It Gets Better, M/M, Omega England (Hetalia), Past Rape/Non-con, Post Mpreg, Postpartum Depression, References to The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood, no beta we die like men, past dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22799956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwenChan/pseuds/GwenChan
Summary: As an omega, Arthur should've loved his first born from the start.Right, he should've.
Relationships: America/England (Hetalia), England & France (Hetalia), England (Hetalia) & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Because Fate said so (but we never agreed) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636471
Kudos: 34





	Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird

**Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird**

Emily is so small, sleeping on her back in her cradle, dressed in the mint green onesie on which Arthur has embroidered a pair of bunnies. It's only one of the hundreds of outfits he has sewed during the long months when n pregnancy forced him home.   
He bends forward to look better at her. Emily's only five days old, her face all wrinkled up from a restless sleep, but all those who have seen her keep repeating how much she looks like him.

Arthur doesn't know what to think. He doesn't even know what he should feel towards the baby. His omega instincts are screaming with joy; the rest of him cannot help but feeling a sort of hate towards that poor, innocent creature who has nothing to do with it.

Surely, Emily has inherited both his hair and his dark eyebrows. Her eyes are blue, like Alfred's, but it's still too early to determine whether they will remain so or darken. Arthur sighs and reaches out to stroke the baby's cheek. She yawns and lifts a small hand to squeeze his finger.  
Something in the omega's chest breaks.

\---

Emily cries desperately, one month old, in her alpha father's arms, as he tries his best to cheer her up.   
Alfred hums, make silly faces, bounces her up and down. Uselessly. Emily doesn't seem to appreciate the attention. She's hungry and her baby stomach still too delicate for infant formula.

From the armchair where he holed up, Arthur observes, with his omega part shouting to get up and feed his daughter, for bloody sake. But he can't do it. And yet, can't even leave.  
Two contrary instincts paralyze him.

He can't move and can't stand the baby's crying. He hides his face in his knees and waits.   
He wishes for Alfred to change room and do something, but even so, Emily continues to cry until Arthur's omega instinct - or whatever pushes him to finally take the baby - has the upper hand.

Just the time to bring Emily to his chest, the baby immediately calms down. Her small, pink mouth forms an "O" around Arthur's right nipple, as he lets himself fall back into the armchair, turning his head to the other side while the baby sucks happily.  
There is something ancient and terrible in all of that, in the link he shares with that creature who, despite all, is his.  
His. When he feels the familiar tears running down his cheeks and has to bite his lips to not burst into open sobs, he doesn't know anymore if it's out of sadness or happiness.

\---

"Emily."  
"Yes."  
It's difficult to say what Francis is thinking of the choice; if he approves it or instead believes Arthur condemned his daughter to an unhappy life because of a wrong name. Not that he cares for opinion of someone who can at best be considered an acquaintance.  
"It was Alfred's choice," he still feels the need to specify. He would add that the next time he will be the one to choose, Edward if a male, Rose if female; if it wasn't that he's not sure he wants another time.  
"Her granma's name."

Just like it has been Alfred's idea to invite Francis to Emily's christening because the alpha's definition of close friends is quite broad and as labile.  
Francis pursues his lips in a grimace, but eventually, he just says: "It's a nice name. Emily."

They are both in the nursery, as Arthur tries to put Emily to sleep to return to the dozens of guests Alfred felt obliged to involve, mostly alphas with their adoring omega. If it were for him, he would stay hidden somewhere private until the party has ended.   
Unfortunately, he knows all too well how he needs to maintain the perfect picture of a radiant omega, proud of his offspring.

"Still, it's nothing of your business," he reminds Francis, who has already followed him without permission.  
"I'm just worried about you," says the other, reaching out to put his hand on Arthur's shoulder.   
Arthur flinches. "You don't have to" he hisses not to disturb Emily. She began protesting nonetheless as soon as Arthur tries to put her back in her cradle.   
He turns slightly towards Francis to throw him what he'd like to be the stinky-eye and instead must be only a pleading grimace.  
"Is she always like this?"  
Arthur shrugs with a deep sigh and that's enough for an answer. "She clings to me until she's fallen asleep."  
"What about Alfred?"  
"He tries to help," Arthur mutters, shifting Emily from one arm to the other, "But babies don't get along with alphas."  
For the paediatrician, it has to do with the smell.

"Come on, poppet, sleep" he murmurs again with his lips resting on the baby's crown. But she looks at him with her big eyes, totally awake. All that should've tired her has only excited her instead.

"You can go back to the reception," Arthur reminds Francis once again. No dice. At least the beta acts as a neutral element.   
"Have you tried giving her something with your smell?"  
"Of course. I'm not an idiot!"  
"And?"  
"If she's not already sleeping, she cries anyway."  
  
To underline Arthur's words, a high-pitched scream breaks the quiet of the nursery the moment Arthur tries to stop cuddling Emily. 

Putting into the baby's hand a handkerchief he has brushed on his scent's gland proves useless.   
When Francis opens his mouth to say something, Arthur is by now on the verge of snapping.  
"Let me try," says the beta instead, stretching out his arms. Arthur weighs both Emily and the options. As Francis reminds him, he's a beta and kids like betas as much as they love their omega parent.  
  
Not to say he's hasn't had a moment of quiet in weeks.  
  
"She'll cry again" he eventually gives up.  
Emily tries her best to prove him right. Francis, however, isn't fazed. He simply continues to cradle the baby, occasionally tickling under her chin. And Heaven knows how, not only does Emily calm down, but after a few minutes of lullabies she even starts to yawn.  
"How did you do it?" Arthur whispers as he picks back Emily, careful to not wake her up with any abrupt movements.  
"Told you, I'm a beta."  
Francis hesitates for a moment before adding, "We are required by law to do civil service in paediatrics. I practised."  
"I see."

For lacks of anything better, Arthur pretends to fix Emily's cover, before putting a finger vertically to his lips and pointing to the door in a silent message. He has just lowered the handle when Francis grabs him by his arm. "Are you alright?" he asks.

There is a moment, a split second when Arthur is about to reveal everything to the beta. He'd wish he could tell him how the bonding ritual turned into rape; of all the times he still feels prisoner between those walls.   
He's like to reveal how he loves and hates Emily at the same time and how it eats him inside.   
At least, she wasn't conceived during the bonding, but at the following heat. It's a meagre consolation.   
.When Arthur opens his mouth, however, all his words get stuck in his throat.  
"Yes," he says instead, his voice indicating he considers the topic closed, even. A part of him knows how little conceived he sounds.   
Francis doesn't insist.  
"After you."  
And Arthur opens the door, inhaling a few times before finally throwing himself back into the chaos of the outside world.

\---

"It's not fair!"  
Arthur would almost feel sorry for Alfred if the alpha's umpteenth attempt to cuddle Emily hadn't made her cry again when she had been quiet until then.   
All in all, he kind of understands. He supposes it must not be easy for an alpha to be rejected by his own offspring. This is why he tries to keep a sympathetic tone when answering.

"Your scent is too strong," he reminds Alfred once again. "The paediatrician said it'll be like this for the first six months."  
As he speaks, Arthur brings by habit Emily's head to the hollow of his neck until her little nose rubs against the scent gland he has under his ears.

"But I use scent blockers," Alfred protests after a while. "And that special soap."  
"A baby's sense of smell is much more developed and delicate than ours."  
Even more with a pure alpha, an alpha born from two other alphas. For them, no deodorant will ever be strong enough.  
"Then, it's only another three months."

\---

No, two. They pass so quickly. Today Emily turns four.  
Since she started accepting infant formula, things have definitely improved. She's also getting used to Alfred's presence and his alpha smell, if only for short periods.   
It doesn't help Alfred often exaggerates with his enthusiasm, scaring the baby, until Arthur has to snatch her away and go to another room to calm her down without having an apprehensive alpha breathing down his neck.

  
"Hush, little baby, don't say a word  
Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird "

Arthur sing-songs in a low voice, letting Emily rest against his shoulder. Occasionally he gives small pats on the baby's back to help her burp and fall asleep.

His mind wanders as he silently prays his little girl will grow to be an alpha or maximum a beta. He pleads she'll never know the worries of an omega; or that the world would've changed by the time she's been old enough to present her second gender.

That's when he shakes his head, holding Emily to his chest, careful not to wake her up. It's somehow a sensation, somehow a silent promise: whatever the world will end up being, his daughter won't end up like him.

Arthur's omega instincts had loved Emily from her first cry. In tucking her covers, in a silent oath, Arthur finally agrees.

\---

  
If Alfred wants Emily to have a little brother or sister, he should avoid giving Arthur a heart attack. Instead, the fool keeps to throw her up in the air and catch her up for the toddler delight

Arthur is a little offended Emily's first laugh wasn't for him.  
"We had a deal," he pretends to scold her, tickling the baby on her tummy. Soon Alfred pushes him away, saying something along the lines of "take some time for yourself."

Arthur hesitates, not only for Emily. After months locked at home, going out somehow scares him. Maybe by dint of hearing stories about the risks of walking alone as an omega he's started to believe them too 

"Don't you want to come?" he asks, partly out of courtesy, partly for the submission he's expected to show.  
"Nah. Emily and I will have a great time. Right?" Alfred dismisses him, rubbing his nose against the baby's. "Everything is under control here."  
"Remember to change her."  
"Everything under control!"

There's a part of Arthur that, as soon as he's out on the street, feels the most urgent need to just run and not stop until he crossed a border. It doesn't matter he knows too well how ridiculous the idea is. With an implanted tracker he wouldn't go far; even if he wanted to try, he couldn't bear to leave Emily behind.

After all, she seems happy and Alfred adores her. When Arthur returns home a few hours later, he finds them both deeply asleep on the couch, Emily curled up against her alpha father's chest. The image of the perfect family.  
In retrieving a blanket for the three of them, Arthur tells himself that perhaps, maybe, he can continue to believe the fiction for a little longer.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this quickly for a writing challenge. If you are confused about the dynamics and if you don't mind the angst, you should read "Screaming inside". Just for you to know, Alfred is a good person, it's just that alphas get often aggressive during sex.
> 
> Worldbuilding notes, Emily will have a little brother, Edward, and they'll grow up to be both betas.


End file.
